Announcement of Opportunity for Blanco Instrumentation Partnership

NOAO announces a partnership opportunity to develop a major new instrument for the Blanco 4 meter telescope of Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. Although there are no restrictions on the type of instrument that can be proposed, in order to build on the Blanco telescope's particular strengths we see a special opportunity to exploit the wide field capability of the prime or RC focus of the telescope. Additionally, any proposed instrument should be, consistent with a system-wide view of facilities available to the US community, in particular those in the southern hemisphere. Guidance on the US system can be obtained from the report on the first workshop on the ground-based O/IR system, see http://www.noao.edu/gateway/oir_workshop/

By the likely time of commissioning of the new instrument solicited here, we expect to have retired the RC and Echelle spectrographs since their capabilities will have been replaced by new instrumentation on SOAR and Gemini. We plan to begin sharing the wide-field IR imager NEWFIRM with the KPNO Mayall 4-m in 2006, NEWFIRM is described at http://www.noao.edu/ets/newfirm/. A technical description of the telescope will be accumulated here.

Proposers will need to submit a science plan, a technical plan, and a management plan. The science plan should include a description of compelling science to be undertaken by the proposing team, which may be in partnership with NOAO, and also an outline of anticipated astronomy community use of the instrument through merit based proposals. The technical plan should present a conceptual design of the instrument in sufficient depth for peer reviewers to assess the feasibility of the project with the resources to be committed. The management plan should outline the proposed sharing of responsibilities for optomechanical, focal plane, data acquisition, and data management work packages between the proposer and NOAO. A general management structure along with a schedule of project reviews (PDR, CDR) and acceptance testing should be included. The management plan should include a plan for public and educational outreach and explain the broader impacts of the project.

Up to 30% of the Blanco telescope time for 5 years commencing in 2007 or 2008 is available for the science project. NOAO will contribute the operation of the telescope and an upgraded control system with a combined nominal annual value of $4M at real year prices. NOAO would expect to partner with the successful proposer in developing a data management system, (including data acquisition) which is compatible with the National Virtual Observatory. The successful proposer can expect to work with an engineering interface at NOAO with optomechanical and other expertise.

Letters of intent are due at NOAO on March 15, 2004. At that time an NOAO contact person will be appointed to answer proposers' technical inquiries, and to give guidance on the form and scope of the proposal. Instructions and technical information will also be available via these WWW pages, and arrangements can be made for early appointment of the NOAO contact person, mentioned above, if appropriate. Full proposals are due August 15, 2004, and will be reviewed by an expert external panel. It is expected that results will be announced by October 15, 2004.

Potential proposers are encouraged to contact Alistair Walker at awalker@ctio.noao.edu , (56-51-205200).